Connectivity in Service Systems: An Analysis of Technology-Enabled Value Co-Creation Processes in the Consulting Industry

Abstract

Interactions between service providers and customers were traditionally understood to occur through a physical interface. However, the advancement of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has changed, and continues to change, the characteristics of these interactions. Today, service providers and customers increasingly interact through a virtual, rather than a physical, interface resulting in technology-enabled value co-creation processes, the central phenomenon investigated in this study. Technology-enablement in service is an emerging reality around the world that academic research has not fully caught-up with. Early studies in service have predominantly focussed on face-to-face settings, and omitted technology-enabled value co-creation processes. Subsequent studies expand into technology-enabled contexts, yet these contributions tend to focus on the ICT alone and, just like their face-to-face counterparts, provide empirical insights from the perspective of either the service provider or customer. Consequently, this results in an incomplete account of technology-enabled value co-creation processes. Especially since scholars have called for prospective studies that focus on the human or relational dimension and the impact of ICT, all while including both service provider and customer in the inquiry. This thesis presents the results of a qualitative multiple case study that empirically investigates technology-enabled value co-creation processes in the consulting industry. Each case consists of one or a combination of consulting firms that engage by means of ICT with one, or a combination of customer firms, thereby providing the holistic outlook required. Furthermore, this study extends previous inquiries by providing a novel perspective through the connectivity metaphor as a socio-technical lens to analyse technology-enabled value cocreation processes. Connectivity is a multidimensional construct that allows assessing and comparing the relative importance of both ICT and the relational dimension for a service system's ability to co-create value. This study develops two distinct models with sets of propositions that provide insight into the previously un-investigated socio-technical context of value co-creation. It argues that value co-creation is mainly a human interaction and the availability of ICTs in a service system do not influence human behaviour, goals or motivation regarding the value co-creation process. Consequently, this study concludes that the ability of a service system to co-create value is contingent on its human entities rather than ICTs that enable the interaction between them.